COVID-19 Among Workers in the Seafood Processing Industry: Implications for Prevention Measures — Alaska, March–October 2020

Details

• Journal Article:
  Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)
• Personal Author:
  Porter, Kimberly A. ; Ramaswamy, Maya ; Koloski, Thomas ; Castrodale, Louisa ; McLaughlin, Joseph
• Description:
  Large COVID-19 outbreaks have occurred in high-density workplaces, such as food processing facilities (1). Alaska's seafood processing industry attracts approximately 18,000 out-of-state workers annually (2). Many of the state's seafood processing facilities are located in remote areas with limited health care capacity. On March 23, 2020, the governor of Alaska issued a COVID-19 health mandate (HM10) to address health concerns related to the impending influx of workers amid the COVID-19 pandemic (3). HM10 required employers bringing critical infrastructure (essential) workers into Alaska to submit a Community Workforce Protective Plan.* On May 15, 2020, Appendix 1 was added to the mandate, which outlined specific requirements for seafood processors, to reduce the risk for Transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the Virus that causes COVID-19, in these high-density workplaces (4). These requirements included measures to prevent introduction of SARS-CoV-2 into the workplace, including tTesting of incoming workers and a 14-day entry quarantine before workers could enter nonquarantine residences. After 13 COVID-19 outbreaks in Alaska seafood processing facilities and on processing vessels during summer and early fall 2020, State of Alaska personnel and CDC field assignees reviewed the state's seafood processing-associated cases. Requirements were amended in November 2020 to address gaps in COVID-19 Prevention. These revised requirements included restricting quarantine groups to ≤10 persons, pretransfer tTesting, and serial tTesting (5). Vaccination of this essential workforce is important (6); until high vaccination coverage rates are achieved, other mitigation strategies are needed in this high-risk setting. Updating industry guidance will be important as more information becomes available.
• Subjects:
  CoronaVirus Infections COVID-19 Disease Outbreaks Food-Processing Industry Humans Occupational Diseases
• Source:
  MMWR Morbidity Mortal Weekly Rep. 70(17):622-626
• Series:
  Weekly Report: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)
• ISSN:
  0149-2195 (print) ; 1545-861X (digital)
• Pubmed ID:
  33914728
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC8084125
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Alaska
• Pages in Document:
  5 pdf pages
• Volume:
  70
• Issue:
  17
• Collection(s):
  Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:5e30071d460323705cda981afe1ad4eda872471a5e41a33815835f9c76a555c42a72bca9cd50b6ebe6b1c2c726a1b690b271f9e907583eceb91910817989e4ac
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/106179/cdc_106179_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 108.33 KB ]